


The First Time

by scarlettandblue



Series: Qua Torva Res Es [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, SGA Secret Santa 2009, Stargate Atlantis Vegas AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10624035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlettandblue/pseuds/scarlettandblue
Summary: Another import from my old LJ.This story was originally written for the 2009 Secret Santa challenge at for the lovelysilverraven11The specific request is shown at the end of the story.It’s an Au of cannon AU, so in one sense there are spoilers up to the end of season 5, but then again there aren't. It's slash, of course! Sheppard/McKay. There's swearing and sex and a few owies for our dear boys.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by maaseru who has done the most fabulous job ever under very trying circumstances. But she did a fabulous job thank you so much my dear!!  
> I also admit I fiddled with it again after it came back from its final beta reading, so any mistakes you spot are all me.
> 
> Disclaimer:  
> And of course I don't own John or Rodney (I wish!!) or any of the SGA and SG1 crew,  
> or any Navajo Tribal Police officers from new Mexico. But playing with them is such fun and you shouldn't sue anyone for having fun, should you?

Rodney was really pissed that he had to consent to stay with Jeannie before they agreed to his release. It’s not like he didn’t understand. They had to be careful. Doctors these days seemed like they were more concerned with the practice of avoiding lawsuits than they were with medicine. But he’d stabilized on the medication and, as to the rest, it was just plain ridiculous. There were many, many more reliable and far less painful ways to try and kill yourself than to deliberately induce anaphylaxis. He just he couldn’t make them understand it had been an accident.

He mostly stayed in his room his first three weeks in Vancouver. Only coming out for meals and to shower, because he learned his lesson regarding the medical profession’s so called logical progression from lack of personal hygiene to an automatic diagnosis of some flavour of crazy. But it was all so painfully awkward at times that he almost begged to go back to the facility.

He hadn’t realised exactly how appalling it was going to be, as the focus of both his phenomenally nosy sister and her truly, clinically tactless offspring. But he decided that If he had to listen to another discussion going on right outside his bedroom door, where Madison asked when Uncle Mer was going to howl at the moon like a crazy dog, he might seriously reconsider the whole voluntary death by lemon thing again.

But things did ease up a little. Or maybe Maddie got really bored waiting for Rodney to do something obviously crazy and just lost interest. Or Jeannie simply started slipping him another pill and he was too medicated to care any more. Whatever the reason, he found he’d relaxed enough to contemplate what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

 

Report 14  
Day 60  
Tsub1  
To: Col F Simmons  
From : Dr J McKenzie

Subject 1 continues to display behaviours within normal boundaries. Interaction with Civilians non critical at this time. Memory patch fully functional and embedded

Recommend continued surveillance. Monitoring of psychiatric sessions. Continued sampling to ensure brain chemistry remains at optimum levels once medication is reduced.

Review: 28 days.

 

Rodney never managed to feel comfortable with his therapist, and he never told him what he really thought or remembered of his breakdown. He wasn’t stupid, he said enough to get McKenzie off his back, and after five weeks they cut his sessions back to one a week and the doctor began a planned reduction in his medication.

Rodney knew he should have mentioned the dreams as soon as they started but he couldn’t. From the first moment he dreamt of the moonlit desert he felt certain, it was real. Not part of his psychotic break or whatever it was they were calling his breakdown.

The washed out shades of pale and dark spreading and disappearing into impenetrable night. The moon high and so cold in the sky. The air clear enough that the craggy texture of the craters across the lunar surface are in sharp relief against the night sky. It was so real it was almost painful. He was always running; running hard and joyful in the cool moonlight. There was such a feeling of freedom, such acute unfathomable bliss in his heart that the first few times he woke from the dream there were tear tracks on his face.

But more than that he kept quiet because he was never running alone in the dreams.

 

Report 20  
Day 80  
Tsub2

To: Col F Simmons  
From: Dr Lee

subject 2 remains unchanged.

All measurements and data within normal range for species. As previously stated there is nothing remarkable about this subject. And in light of this my recommendation remains unchanged. It is likely just a lost pet that was caught up in the retrieval. Release it to the civilian authorities to deal with.

 

Rodney had the dream most nights now. Sometimes he’d wake from it with a vague disquiet, tatters of the dream would gently slide away on the ragged edge of sleep and wakefulness. Sometimes the dream filled his head with sound and feeling so vivid that he’d feel a kind of bereavement when he’d wake once again in a Vancouver suburb, in his sister’s soulless spare room. Alone.

Then one morning he wasn’t alone when he woke up.

“Mer.” Jeannie said his name softly, a little crack in her voice, nothing like her usual combative tone.

“Mmmhh?” He was never coherent before his first cup of coffee, but all the same he tried to make his voice sound normal, and not like he was right on the dark edge of loss.

“Who’s John?”

Rodney felt a strange clutch in his chest, like he was suddenly falling. His whole body, muscles and bones and tendons, tensed in a startling moment of joyous anticipation… then… his brain kicked in and he said in a thick confused voice.  
“I don’t know a John.”

“Just now you were saying his name.” Jeannie crossed from the doorway and sat on the bed next to him, she brushed her hand tentatively across his shoulder and squeezed gently. Even diffused through the material of his t-shirt it felt shockingly intimate, and yet somehow unreal.

Maybe it was because Rodney and Jeannie had been estranged for many years, and even though she had taken him in, even though she had been kind to him in her way, they were still distant. And they did not touch. So perhaps it was just this distance that made the feeling of her hand on his shoulder nothing more than a pale imitation of touch.

Maybe it was because when he tried to think back to the last time someone had touched with any meaning stronger than, ‘excuse me‘, or ‘out of the way!’ there was an empty, aching place in his mind, and when he tried harder to remember, tried to think of even casual touches, there was nothing. Even in the Academy Hospital no one really touched him, unless they were wearing gloves. It was likely the standard these days on all wards, to avoid any kind of direct skin contact, to lessen the spread of infections.

But Rodney had an inkling that the real reason touch seemed so distant, that he felt cocooned beyond even his own naturally reserved nature, was to be found in the dreams.

The dreams were filled with every sensation. His body ruffled by the cool night breezes, the scents of a thousand infinitely exciting, enthralling things filling his head. The heat and strength of his body running fast and sleek through the darkness.

The sheer delight of chasing and being chased, playful and intent by turns. Rolling and tumbling with wild exuberance until suddenly too tired to go another step he’d just drop to the ground panting hot harsh breaths, lying still, ripe with the pleasure of just being there at that moment, of waiting for the next moment to come, filled with something new. And always, he was conscious of his night’s companion, the one who ran beside him, the one who chases and is chased, the one who pressed close to his side panting and laughing and breathless too when they can’t run another step and collapsed to the earth together to rest and wait.

Rodney’s eyes were shut tight and he curled in on himself, he tried hard to hold on to the way he felt in the dream. He had this strange notion that if he could bring it with him to the daylight, if he could just retain some of that dreamed joy in his waking self then everything would somehow be okay. But he can’t do it, something always distracts him and it just goes away.

“…so you don’t have to be! Okay, Mer… Mer?”  
She shook his shoulder again and Rodney realised he’d missed whatever Jeannie had been saying.

“I don’t?“ He tried to make it sound like he knew what she had been saying.

“No! Of course you don’t.” She sounded kind of cranky, but that was more or less her normal tone of voice with him.

Rodney held his breath, because he was pretty much hopeless at being a good brother to Jeannie, that much he had figured out since he’d been staying with her. He always said or did the wrong thing. Sometimes he very carefully didn’t say or do anything at all, thinking that might get him into less trouble but he maybe just breathed wrong or something because not saying or doing stuff was just as likely to piss his sister off.

“Is that what this was all about?”

He had no idea what she was talking about, and Rodney figured he’d better come clean now, because the longer it went on the more pissed she’d be, so he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to hide from me, Mer.” For once she didn’t sound angry.

“I… I’m not” Rodney shrugged, aware of her hand still there, just resting gently around the curve of his shoulder.

“Then tell me about John.”

“I don’t know a John, I can‘t tell you what I don‘t know.” But even saying the name a second time, it felt strange and familiar in his mouth, like a sweet breath of desert air.

“You dream about him every night, Mer.” She squeezed his shoulder again, and it wasn’t like a warning, like she was about to get mad. It felt almost as if she was trying to be nice.

“I do not!” Rodney didn’t understand what made him angry. Unsure if it was Jeannie knowing that he was dreaming, even if she got the details wrong. Or if it was her trying to be kind to him, trying to be nice, when she’d never seemed to feel the need to before.

The strange thing was, he got mad and she didn’t. She just leaned down and hugged him, pressed her cheek against his for a second and then pulled back and patted him once more on the shoulder before she got up.  
“You don’t have to tell me, Mer. Not if you don’t want to. But I hope you know you can tell me. I won’t be shocked or mad at you. You‘re my brother, and nothing can change that.” Then she left, shutting the door quietly on her way out.

When he had given in, when the lure of the kitchen and the first cup of coffee of the day finally proved irresistible, Rodney had imagined incredible awkwardness and humiliation awaited him around the breakfast table. But everything was normal, maybe even better than normal.

Kaleb was engrossed in his morning paper and lowered it just enough to mumble a greeting before he disappeared again behind his impenetrable wall of newsprint. Madison was completely mesmerised by the swirling patterns her spoon made in her breakfast cereal and barely noticed his arrival. Then Jeannie thudded his first mug of coffee down in front of him like it was a particularly aggressive opening move in some weird board game that used place settings instead of chess pieces . But then she squeezed the back of his neck as she stepped back, just like mum used to when she was having a good day, and it seemed to Rodney as if his world shifted to the left then settled back down again in a slightly better place.

It was Kaleb’s turn to take Maddie to school, so pretty soon it was just Rodney and Jeannie sitting in the quiet sunny kitchen. But instead of awkward, the silence was strangely comforting. When Jeannie finally spoke it was just to ask if Rodney had any plans for the day, and to suggest a trip to the Mall if he didn’t. And Rodney agreed to go even though he hated the Mall and everything it stood for, apart from bookshops. And electronics stores.

They had a pretty good time though. Rodney had forgotten that Jeannie could always make him laugh. That between her blatant pushiness and her pointedly mean teasing she was kind of light and funny too. They ended up buying books for Rodney and Kaleb, yet another Barbie, assorted furry creatures and a pretty blue dress for Maddie, plus a state-of-the-art bread maker and some organic face cream for Jeannie.

Then there was a totally manic shopping phase where Jeannie insisted Rodney buy clothes for himself. Two plain shirts.. pale blue and dark orange, and two outrageously stripy shirts in multiple colours. Five long sleeved t-shirts and seven short sleeved t-shirts in contrasting colours, although she wouldn’t explain why the colours had to contrast quite that much. Three impractical sweaters. Two pairs of cargo pants plus some jeans that were too tight and made his ass look fat.

He managed to surface from the fugue shopping state just in time to veto the purchase of an incredibly expensive charcoal suit with maroon silk shirt and tie, but it was a close call, so he refused to go into another single shop. Except for the computer store, of course. And one shoe store because he had to agree those were some seriously cool orange trainers.

By the time they got home Rodney was exhausted, he slumped in the breakfast nook watching Jeannie, who seemed to have been weirdly energized by the whole shopping process, and was buzzing around the kitchen like some kind of exotically charged particle. Just watching her seemed to sap the strength out of him. That could be the only explanation for his inability to resist her when she started asking him questions.

“What are you going to do, Mer?”

“I thought I might lie down in my room for half an hour.”

“Not now, idiot! I mean what are you going to do?”

“Oh, that. Really not sure.”

“You could teach.”

“Oh I could not.”

“Write?”

“Not really allowed.”

What? Not allowed, why not?”

“My contract. Non-disclosure agreements, other stuff.”

“They have no right.” Jeannie was winding up for one of her diatribes against the American Industrial Military Complex. It had been a familiar complaint in the Miller household since Rodney had taken up residence. How she can’t believe her own brother sold out to the Establishment. How he should be ashamed he used his powers for evil. How it’s the duty of good Canadians everywhere to resist the Goddamned Yankee dollar and Goddamned Yankee Global Branding.

Fortunately he had the means to cut this particular rant off at the pass. “They do, as long as they continue to pay my full salary plus benefits.”

Jeannie’s mouth snapped shut, and he had to hide his smirk at the expressions that had passed over her face. Sour, grudging respect, actual open mouthed-amazement, and just a tiny little dash of pure avariciousness at the thought of how loaded he might actually be and how much she might be able to guilt out of him in terms of more presents for Maddie.

But all she said was, “So how come you aren’t living it up in some luxury penthouse?”

“You know they wouldn’t let me out until I proved I had a stable living environment. Apparently penthouse luxury doesn’t cut it with the shrinks.”

Jeannie pursed her lips, like she didn’t want reminding, and Rodney felt his heart sink. It wasn’t like he had planned to stay there forever. And if he was honest with himself he had been half expecting his welcome to run out at any moment. Memories of how his visits home usually ended were all too vivid in his mind, so really, managing a whole seven weeks before getting kicked out was somewhat of a record.

“I suppose it really is time for me to move on. I mean I imagine I’ve outstayed my welcome… So I understand… And you have your lives to be getting on with so it’s hardly surprising you might … and I’m not quite as… with the medication…oouff.” Rodney was dragged to his feet and whatever he had been about to say was muffled in Jeannie’s hair and neck as she literally squeezed the breath out of him in a really, really tight hug.

He had already worked out that Jeannie had touched him more that day, if he counted every time she flapped a sweater or shirt at him, or held something up against his back muttering about his shoulders being far too wide, or the three times she shoved him into a changing room with a pile of clothes, than she probably ever had done in their entire adult life.

Rodney tried to struggle out of the confines of her arms but she wouldn’t let him go. He tried to reason with her. “Jeannie, this is odd?”  
But it sounded like she had growled and she squeezed him even harder, so he added quickly. “But nice, it’s very nice.” He patted her back tentatively. “But I’m having a little difficulty breathing.”

Jeannie stepped back and away from him then, her face hidden by her hair and when she spoke her voice was a little rough. “Don’t be a moron. Stay as long as you want. Stay for ever, Mer. That would be just fine by me.”

“Oh… I… okay… that would be… uhh… fine by me too.”  
And Rodney couldn’t help the ridiculous urge to grin at her. Which was why when Kaleb arrived home for lunch they had both been grinning in the kitchen like fools. But the man clearly did have a few half-way usable brain cells because he simply nodded at Rodney then grabbed his wife and kissed her cheek.

After that, Rodney found it easier to talk about things with Jeannie. She still confused him sometimes, asking him strange questions about the people he worked with, and what he did for fun. She seemed to have no concept of what working for a secret military establishment entailed. And clearly she had never been locked in an underground bunker for days on end with top government scientists or she would have understood that the concept of having any attractive colleagues he might have wanted to date held very little meaning, even in relative terms.

There was a brief flurry of interest when he mentioned Sam Carter, but then Jeannie seemed to lose interest in her as well. Eventually she dropped the whole subject of Rodney’s lack of a private life and concentrated instead on his future.

One morning Jeannie asked if she could come with him to his next session with the psychiatrist. Rodney figured that as he spent all his sessions deflecting McKenzie and diverting or closing down the various lines of questioning, it might be a very bad thing to give the man more ammunition by taking his less than tactful sister. But Jeannie was virtually impossible to refuse once she got an idea in her head.

Rodney almost felt sorry for McKenzie. The man had been seriously thrown when Rodney showed up with Jeannie in tow. He’d shifted awkwardly when Rodney blithely gave his full consent for her to sit in on the session. McKenzie had spluttered briefly about confidentiality clauses and non-disclosure employment agreements, but Jeannie had just ploughed right over his objections, quoting some official-sounding legal jargon about medical ethics and patient empowerment.

The session had been pretty tame, thankfully. But Jeannie had watched Rodney and McKenzie back and forth like it was a riveting tennis match. Whenever he glanced at her, Rodney noticed Jeannie would have a kind of closed off superior half smile on her face, and whenever she caught him looking she’d raise her eyebrow and tilt her head to indicate he should get back to it with McKenzie and amuse her some more.

As the session came to an end Jeannie began to ask McKenzie some questions. She asked about his qualifications, and what kind of psychoanalysis he practiced. She wanted to know what alternative treatments he had considered for Rodney aside from medication and what specific drugs had been prescribed to him while he was hospitalized. She wanted to know whether his ongoing treatment was mandatory or voluntary.

McKenzie stammered and mumbled his way through his answers, and then they were out of there and back in the car on their way home.

“I don’t think you should see him any more.”

“He’s not that bad, Jeannie.”

“The man is a total idiot, and far too stupid to manage you. He relies way too heavily on drug therapy. Plus he works for your employer, so I don’t trust his motivation. And worst of all he’s Freudian, and Freudians are no good to people like us, Mer. My therapist explained it to me and she saved me years of misery in the wrong kind of analysis.”

“You had therapy?” Rodney couldn’t quite keep the disbelief out of his voice, this was the first he’d heard of it.

“Of course I did. You don’t honestly think I’d be this well balanced and normal after the childhood we had without it, do you?”

“No, I suppose not.” Rodney wasn’t really convinced but he’d learned it was better to agree with Jeannie when she was driving.

“I’ll make you an appointment with Kate. See how you get on with her.”

 

Report 25 (Final)  
Day 90  
Tsub1  
To: Col. F Simmons  
From: Dr J Mckenzie

I have finished my evaluation of subject 1.

The memory patch has been in operation for 90 days. There has been zero bleed-through of suppressed memories. Sufficient time has passed to allow for any delayed reaction or breakdown. The patch is now fully integrated and fully operational. The subject has reached an optimal level of mental stability under the circumstances.

Despite repeated testing there are absolutely no signs of any adverse side-effects from the subject’s exposure to the device.

The subject has re-integrated with the family with little emotional fallout, and while the situation is not ideal it is an acceptable compromise. l predict the subject may be mis-advised to seek alternative, less high value therapy, but this has no bearing on the classified issues that I was tasked with overseeing.

Any future involvement of other, possibly less qualified or skilled, mental health operatives will have no effect on the damage limitation procedures we have already incorporated into this subject.

My conclusion is the treatment has been a complete success and there is little value in my continued involvement with the subject.

Of course the subject will no longer be able to participate in the classified reaserch that he was engaged in prior to the incident. It is an unfortunate consequence of the invasive nature of the memory patch that some mental capacity and fortitude has been compromised. The subject may retain much of his high-functioning mental powers but his ability to withstand interrogation and his capacity to remain circumspect and unemotional has likely been damaged by the procedure.

Based on my findings and my professional judgement of the subject after our lengthy sessions, my recommendation would be continued employment of the subject on less sensitive areas of work. This would allow an optimal degree of control and supervision.

I would suggest an approach be made within the next two weeks as the subject seems to have recovered physically and is now mentally stable.

Alternatively I could recommend enforced retirement with a sufficiently generous severance package, provided we authorize a subtle campaign to discredit any future research or publishing that might compromise security. Something similar to the propaganda applied to Dr Jackson’s unfortunate revelations should be sufficient. This is a viable alternative should it prove unsuitable to retain the subject in employment. This alternative would also pose minimal risk in my opinion.

Having observed the subject’s current family situation I would strongly advise against authorizing a more permanent and final solution to the situation.  
I feel the time when this might have been a viable option has passed and to attempt this kind of hard clean up now would pose a high level risk of exposure.

While the subject’s family is neither prominent nor important, either politically or financially, I believe they poses a sufficient level of political and social awareness to ensure that were the subject to disappear now, there would be an unacceptable level of publicity. There would be little we could do to deter them, as action against citizens of an ally who are to all intents innocent non- combatants would undoubtedly be unacceptable to the present administration.

I will begin the process of closing my base of operations here unless I hear from you.

 

Addendum:  
While I have not been involved in the research or testing of subject 2 it is my view that this second subject be disposed of. I no longer have any requirement to re-examine it, as subject 1 has been fully and successfully treated. We have undoubtedly collected all the meaningful data we can from the second subject, so there can be little point in keeping it alive. My recommendation is euthanize it and dispose of the body as an extreme contaminant, for the sake of caution.


End file.
